Skyrim v1.9

March 26th, 2013, 19:44

Since I don't keep up with developments, and I kinda feel like playing the game again, and certain people here were always complaining about the plethora of bugs in it, and since I haven't posted in a while, and I couldn't find any existing news item or forum thread about this, and you people are so incredibly knowledgeable about everything RPG and will forgive me unconditionally if this has already been discussed before, and I'm too lazy to scour the internet, what are your thoughts about the fixes Bethesda has made in the recent patch that Steam downloaded onto my PC?

- Fixed issue with quest scripts that were not shutting down properly
- Random dragon attacks will no longer occur during “Battle for Whiterun”
- The white phial is no longer consumed if given to a follower
- Unused briar hearts can be dropped after finishing “The White Phial”
- Gallus’ Encoded Journal is no longer a quest item after completing the Thieves Guild
- Pantea’s flute is no longer a quest item after completing “Pantea’s Flute”

That and tons of other bugfixes.

15 months for polishing, I wonder how many months this game was being developed then? 15*10=150 maybe?

In any case it's a good news, but I have to replay some other games before I return to Skyrim. But now it finally "sounds" playable/enjoyable/notannoyable and worth buying it's DLC. When's the next DLC sale?

Originally Posted by Thaurin
Since I don't keep up with developments, and I kinda feel like playing the game again, and certain people here were always complaining about the plethora of bugs in it, and since I haven't posted in a while, and I couldn't find any existing news item or forum thread about this, and you people are so incredibly knowledgeable about everything RPG and will forgive me unconditionally if this has already been discussed before, and I'm too lazy to scour the internet, what are your thoughts about the fixes Bethesda has made in the recent patch that Steam downloaded onto my PC?

They have been doing more than patching for bugs. They have been expanding on the game, reviewing game features, introducing new balances etc

In the last two updates, it is clear they have reviewed the rules for encounters as you now meet a whole new composition of road encounters. So much my character no longer rides but runs.

They have reworked the NPC AI who are now much better at using terrain and setting up ambushes (it still happens though you see them hiding before they are hid), followers are better at following, dragons might have been added one or two new behaviours. They have consistently worked on the economy and how holding activity should act on another.

The legendary feature adds the possibility to steep up the difficulty of the game drastically. Character level 40, I made his two handed ability legendary and suddenly everything was made very hard to kill. As you can redistribute perks, you can choose to avoid those that gives such an edge to the character.

I had a big fight against an elder dragon as it probably must have been. I lost my companion on the way (forgot to untick the wait here command) and spotted a troup of atmer elves escorting a prisoner. Just as the character prepared to assault them, a dragon swooped in. The prisoner was fast down and it took five minutes to kill the dragon. One atmer died in the meantime, the two others were one blow away from their death. Dragon's attack were more distributed all over its opponents and no longer focused on the dragonborn.

^That certainly sounds like more than they've ever done with their games but given Skyrims success it's certainly plausible. Wonder how the mods that make big changes adapt to such "upstream" activity by Bethesda, if they will at all.

—

I'd just like to interject here and point out that I'm not going to say anything to spoil the mood, Chief. I'll just float here and watch. Don't mind me, just sitting here, floating and watching, that's me.

Originally Posted by joxer
Um… 15 months after the game release… To note a few…
[…]
In any case it's a good news, but I have to replay some other games before I return to Skyrim. But now it finally "sounds" playable/enjoyable/notannoyable and worth buying it's DLC. When's the next DLC sale?

Sorry, I never had the obviously absolutely dreadful gaming experience that you seem to have had with Skyrim. So complaining about it to me isn't really doing anything.

I won't touch the DLC before I've actually played through most or all of the main game's content… which will take me a while with my attention span.

Originally Posted by Thrasher
Beware of the Steam malware. Actually not as terrible as Origin, but hate the stealth updates.

I like Steam's automatic updates. I guess with Skyrim, there's a chance of mods breaking. But I'll leave the auto-updates on regardless.

Originally Posted by Dez
Sure benthesa is slow and they could do better with patches

I'm slow with my games myself, so it works out great.

Originally Posted by Dez
If you're a pc gamer there is the unofficial skyrim patch available that fixes almost every quest bug and it is conctantly updated.

Yeah, I had that and a ton of other mods through the Workshop and Nexus. Unfortunately, it gives me slowdowns in some areas and I don't know which mod is responsible. I love throwing in random enhancements, though.

So your principles killed the game for you. Not very pragmatic. I'll never understand.

Originally Posted by ChienAboyeur
They have been doing more than patching for bugs. They have been expanding on the game, reviewing game features, introducing new balances etc […]

Interesting. That and all the mods I threw in the mix increase my desire to jump back in the game. I've always enjoyed running around Skyrim. I never know why I always stop playing a game before the end.

Originally Posted by Thaurin
So your principles killed the game for you. Not very pragmatic. I'll never understand.

My principle is not to abuse ppl to work for free. Yes I'm aware I'll never earn billions with such principle, but hating anything that smells on slavery is my choice.

Too many bugs "killed" the game for me, not some principle. And it seems I'm not the only one who whined for more than a year. Because of us whiners, EA finally blessed a huge bugfixing patch that doesn't fix a few "rare this/rare that". If I joined your wagon of "let's abuse modders", 1.9 would have never happened. You'll never understand that and that's one thing I agree with you.

Originally Posted by Thaurin
I won't touch the DLC before I've actually played through most or all of the main game's content… which will take me a while with my attention span.

I've actually played the most of the main game's content despite seeing and experiencing annoyances frequently. And there is no way I'd ever buy any DLC for a game in such shape. Was no way, to be precise. As this patch contains some of the things I still remember being very angry about.
Since they've decided to finally polish the game, I'll probably buy DLC.

Originally Posted by joxer
If I joined your wagon of "let's abuse modders", 1.9 would have never happened. You'll never understand that and that's one thing I agree with you.

You have a funny idea of what abuse is. Those modders did it voluntarily and without being coaxed, had fun doing it and learned some valuable skills in the process that may be useful to them in areas of their lives that they may want to explore in the future. Like I said, I'll never understand.

As this patch contains some of the things I still remember being very angry about.

I'd suggest learning to control your emotions. Getting angry at a game or developer is not useful.

Originally Posted by joxer
My principle is not to abuse ppl to work for free. Yes I'm aware I'll never earn billions with such principle, but hating anything that smells on slavery is my choice.

Too many bugs "killed" the game for me, not some principle. And it seems I'm not the only one who whined for more than a year. Because of us whiners, EA finally blessed a huge bugfixing patch that doesn't fix a few "rare this/rare that". If I joined your wagon of "let's abuse modders", 1.9 would have never happened. You'll never understand that and that's one thing I agree with you.

You do know that the game was published by Bethesda right? EA has nothing to do with it.

Originally Posted by Thaurin
I'm slow with my games myself, so it works out great.

Yeah i don't mind it either really, as long as patches keep coming and they keep making awesome games like skyrim and support modding, i'm a happy camper

Yeah, I had that and a ton of other mods through the Workshop and Nexus. Unfortunately, it gives me slowdowns in some areas and I don't know which mod is responsible. I love throwing in random enhancements, though.

I doubt its the unofficial patch. I just recently did a clean install of skyrim to my pc and it runs flawlessly with unofficial patches. By no means I'm not an expert with skyrim mods, but if i had to make a wild quess, some unoptimized script in some other mod could easily cause such slowdown in performance. Or if you're running one of those npcs mods (like wars in skyrim) they are known to cause major slowdowns.

Originally Posted by Dez
I doubt its the unofficial patch. I just recently did a clean install of skyrim to my pc and it runs flawlessly with unofficial patches. By no means I'm not an expert with skyrim mods, but if i had to make a wild quess, some unoptimized script in some other mod could easily cause such slowdown in performance. Or if you're running one of those npcs mods (like wars in skyrim) they are known to cause major slowdowns.

I do have the More Interesting NPCs more. I have yet to find these more interesting NPCs, though. I do seem to have been hit by the lip sync bug, where sometimes the NPCs lip sync is off. Annoying!